A Terrible Kindness(98)

He shakes his head and frowns. ‘But if none of it’s here … if it’s only in my head …’ Something is falling within himself. He sounds mad. He doesn’t want Gloria to think he’s mad. He exhales; a bark of breath. ‘It’s an adjustment.’

‘Of course it is.’ Her grip tightens. ‘But you can do it. Just like with your mum.’

‘What do you mean?’

She continues to look at the chapel. ‘You’ve realised people change; in fact, they couldn’t stay the same, even if they wanted to.’

He looks ahead too, holding her hand. He’s holding her hand. Maybe he’ll be all right.

‘I think I’ll visit the graves,’ he says, ‘but it’s a bit of a climb. Do you want to sit in the car, or on that bench in the playground?’

‘No, I’ll come.’ She looks at him. ‘I’ll just have to take it slow.’

They walk back up the side street and turn left, away from the memorial garden and community centre and then right onto the lane that leads to the mountainside cemetery. The oldest graves sit at the bottom, skewed and sunken; grey, green and white with lichen and moss. But higher up the mountain, white semi-circles loop their way across the slope in two long rows; giant Polo mints, bright against the sky. William wants to run to them, but it would look odd and Gloria is by his side, so he slows his step and stares ahead.

‘Bloody hell, don’t they like their hills?’ Hands on hips, Gloria breathes heavily for a few seconds before starting again.

Eventually they stand on a level path before the graves. Graves, William reflects for the first time, that have been here for seven years now. Although he’s close enough to touch them, he has the strange feeling that he’s moving further away. The years feel fluid, as if they are draining through him. The emptiness he felt staring at the new chapel starts to inflate, to fill with a lightness that lets him breathe.

Beneath each loop of a headstone are individual memorials; angel’s wings, hearts, open bibles, scripture verses, poems, photographs in gilded frames. He walks slowly, reading everything.

If all the world was ours to give

We would give it yes and more

To see the one we loved so much

Come smiling through the door.



Halfway along the first row, Gloria sits on a bench behind him and blows her nose. William wants to find the grave of the girl with the perfect hand, but he can’t remember her name. There’s a photograph of a smiling boy, hair neatly parted, new second teeth too big and spread out in his mouth. The broken bodies of these children he never knew alive have sat under the surface of his memory for so long, it’s as if they’re part of him. Yet this is not the memory of the parents, or the community. It’s his. His and Jimmy’s and Harry’s and the other embalmers’. It’s what binds them together, and what separates them from the rest of the world.

William glances over his shoulder as a woman in a blue coat sits next to Gloria. He turns back to the graves.

‘Hello,’ says Gloria, ‘am I on your seat? I can move.’

‘That’s all right, plenty of room for three.’ The woman chuckles. There is a pause, then: ‘Where are you from?’

‘Near Birmingham, but we’ve been at a wedding in Swansea. You live here, do you?’

‘Yes, love. My whole life.’

‘Well,’ says Gloria, bold and kind, ‘my sympathy for the dreadful losses you’ve had to endure.’

‘Thank you.’

William walks along the row.

A precious flower, lent not given

To bud on earth and bloom in heaven.



‘Why have you come?’ The woman’s voice is gentle. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, I just always wonder what brings people here.’

Gloria clears her throat. ‘It’s not morbid curiosity, I promise you. My husband’s an embalmer. He came to help when it happened.’ William doesn’t turn round, but a heat rises in him to hear Gloria call him her husband. ‘He wanted to pay his respects.’

‘I remember them,’ the woman says, ‘a terrible job. A terrible kindness they did for us. Something none of us wanted to think about.’ William stares at the photograph of the smiling boy.

Gloria drops her voice, but he can still hear. ‘He came back for the funerals, but this is the first time since.’

‘He came to the funerals? That’s more than I did. I didn’t go to my own child’s funeral. Imagine that!’

‘I can’t imagine any of it,’ Gloria says.

‘The guilt of it would have eaten me up if it wasn’t for something that happened. My own little miracle that kept me going. Still does.’

‘What was it? Do you mind me asking?’

William walks on a little but stays within earshot. He stares at the inscriptions, listening to the soft rhythm of the woman’s voice.

‘There’s a lane me and my little girl used to like, alongside here. She’d zoom along on her scooter with my shopping bag hanging off the handles, full of things she’d collected. Bits of fern, wildflowers, blackberries, anything she could pick and drop in the bag.

‘On the day of the funerals, I told my husband to go for both of us, and I went up there. I could see everyone, but they couldn’t see me. I sat against this almighty big rock that she used to draw on with her chalks. I wondered if any of it would still be there, but we’d had so much rain it had washed away. It was like I had a God’s-eye view. I watched people putting their flowers on the huge cross. They’d come from all over the world, those flowers. Everyone looked so small. And I thought – how can we bear this? How can we possibly bear this pain? I wished we’d all died that morning. All of us together. That would have been better, I thought.’